Purpose of this project is to improve the health of honey bee
populations in the Puget Sound area by sharing exceptional queen genetics. We
are working together to raise colonies that can thrive with minimal
disease and mite controlling measures.
Raising queens can be a lot of work and be a bit overwhelming for the typical backyard beekeeper. The purpose of this project is to simplify the breeding process by
skipping over several steps and giving participants ready to emerge queen cells (or newly emerged virgin queens) from local exceptional queen lines. These new queens will then mate with nearby drones giving each a unique genetic mix.
Participants will need:
- Equipment and bees to make a queenless nuc or single box hive for mating a new queen.
- Queenless nucs should be made up at least 5 days before adding a virgin queen or cell.
- You will need to remove any cells they may have made so that they have nothing to make their own queen from and will have to accept what you provide them.
- If they didn't try to make any cells, double check you didn't move the queen! - Initially make this queenless nuc colony weak using only 2-3 frames with adhering nurse bees. You can add more resources later after the new queen starts laying.
- Queens don't always return from a mating flights which is another reason to make a weak nuc so that your resource investment is minimal. Don't replace your primary queen with a cell.
As part of this project in exchange for a queen cell you will:
- Help these queens be successful and place them in colonies with healthy bees having low mite counts.
- They will not turn around a dying hive!
- Use resources from a healthy queen-right hive. We need to be able to track queens that have genetics from this project. - Monitor your mite levels several times a year. If your colony has high mite levels at any point in the project please treat them!
- Observe and look for hygienic behaviors.
- Provide status reports on the colony for the rest of this season and next spring.
- Previously we used a shared Google sheet, but this was a technology hurdle and I'm thinking maybe a periodic survey (like this form) would be easier for people to work with.
- The queen is yours, if at any time you feel like this queen is under performing or not meeting your expectations you can eliminate her and report your feedback. We want honest evaluations from everyone that participates.
- We want to find the genetics that exhibit the best traits of their mother colonies when mated with our local drones. - Optional but seems to be easier to share info is to join our Facebook group.
Please note: If you get really lucky and get an exceptional queen we would like to use her (or her drones) in future cell raising batches. We are working together to enrich the local population!
If this sounds exciting, please fill out this form!
